Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah. - book reviews

As WITH the Biblical texts that they interpret and elaborate, the literary documents of rabbinic Judaism are complex and multi-stranded, reflective of the extended duration of their composition. And far from being monolithic in the views and attitudes expressed within its canon, rabbinic discourse preserves a variety of competing interpretations and opinions, privileging not only majority views but minority opinions as well. Given this complicated heritage, it is not surprising that rabbinic literature is similarly diverse in its attitudes towards women and their activities. What unites this plethora of opinions, however, regardless of how they are expressed, is an underlying conviction that "women are a separate people" (Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 62a), differing in legal and social status, as well as in inherent capacities, from men.

Rabbinic social legislation considers woman mainly in her relationship to man, as she falls under his control, and as she contributes to his comfort, in a world envisioned from a profoundly androcentric stance. As long as a woman fulfills the expectations of her society, she is revered and honored for enhancing the lives of her family, and particularly for enabling her male relatives to fulfill their religious obligations. Rabbinic literature is not lacking in words of praise for the supportive, resourceful, and self-sacrificing wife, nor is there a lack of consideration for her physical, sexual, and emotional needs and welfare. As such scholars as Judith Hauptman have demonstrated, rabbinic jurisprudence often goes beyond Biblical precedents in its efforts to ameliorate some of the disadvantages and hardships that women faced as a consequence of Biblical legislation. Moreover, halakhic authorities have historically sought to be flexible in easing difficulties which individual women might encounter because of the system's inherent legal discriminations against women in general. Still, despite their willingness to consider a specific woman's personal situation sympathetically, the rabbinic sages were convinced that women's roles and status in society as a whole were quite different from those deemed appropriate for men.

Inspired by the impact of modern feminism on academic fields of inquiry, and the widespread recognition of the importance of gender as a category of historical and literary analysis, growing numbers of contemporary scholars are studying representations of women in rabbinic texts. A particularly important contribution to this literature is Judith Romney Wegner's examination of the legal status of women in Mishnah. First published in 1988, and now available to a wider audience in paperback, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah has had a profound impact on current thinking about how women are viewed in this most central foundation of rabbinic literature. Dr. Wegner, who is a trained barrister as well as a recipient of the Ph.D. from Brown University, brings both her legal background and her training in rabbinics to her compelling and illuminating description, analysis, and interpretation of women's status in mishnaic law.

The Mishnah, a book of legal directives compiled in the second century CE by Jewish sages in the land of Israel, portrays an idealized society whose central character is the free adult Israelite male, an individual who is assumed to possess wives, children, land, slaves, livestock, and other chattels. In such a social vision, women hold a decidedly ambiguous place. As Wegner points out, the Mishnah basically considers people and things from the perspective of their relationship to an owner or master, and from this stance, a woman, whether as wife or daughter, appears to be chattel. On the other hand, analysis demonstrates that in the Mishnah legal definitions vary with context. Wegner shows that in certain situations the Mishnah portrays women as full persons, virtually equivalent to men intellectually and morally; in these instances they are competent to own property, conduct business, engage in lawsuits, and present legal testimony on specified matters. Thus, the Mishnah appears to be inconsistent; sometimes women are treated as the property of men while at other times they are portrayed as persons with legal rights, duties, and powers.

What determines a woman's legal status at any given point? It is Wegner's conclusion, after a careful and comprehensive examination of texts concerned with both dependent and independent women, that the Mishnah perceives of woman as chattel only when the context is control of her sexual and reproductive function by a specific man. In these instances, a woman is presented as belonging to the man in all matters that affect his ownership of her sexuality, whether as minor daughter, wife, or levirate widow. Wegner considers mishnaic traditions concerning each of these categories of dependent women in separate chapters. She finds that the minor daughter, a young woman under the age of twelve and a half years, is completely under her father's authority, and regarded in the Mishnah primarily as a sexual chattel to be exploited on the marriage market. Similarly, the levirate widow, a woman whose husband has died without male issue, is regarded simply from the point of view of her reproductive potential. As part of her husband's property, she is inherited by his nearest kinsman (levir) along with the estate, and has no independent personal status until her levir chooses either to marry her or release her.